Home Distiller

Fores and heads are great pesticide as well; kills flys and wasps after a short period.

The "Cereal Killer" malt mill is a decent bargain and ready to accept a drill or other motorization. That's a decent malt mill, but it's not recommended for hard stuff like corn. There's a good discussion on appropriate mills on this thread: https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f...

There's so much awesome real-world experience in this thread.

It's unfortunate that it was rightly posted in the fuel sub-forum, but still gets shit on. Spring rutting, I figger. Please continue to discuss; so much great info. Cheers!

Where’s your thermometer? In the vapor path, or the boiler? Chances are, the boiler charge doesn’t have as much alcohol as you think....if you think. We’ve said it over and over in these forums...you can’t run a still by temperature. The fact that you “throw out” questions without reading is approa...

Barkeepers Friend powdered cleaner.. best $2 you'll ever spend. It's mostly oxalic acid, but shines up pretty much everything in the kitchen.

https://www.target.com/p/bar-keepers-fr ... A-13304297

You bet, OVZ. I've learned that most folks can fight their own battles and most don't need others to be offended on their behalf. I'm a long time lurker; even older than you. :wink: Thanks all. I switched to a 1" tube and that cleared up the issue; not enough clearance was causing the alcometer...

Thanks for the help, OVZ!

A common fault is the flow holding it up because of insufficient clearance for the flow rate. A bypass might help. Thanks, NZChris. I was thinking the same thing, but then I measured with just a simple water flow. The alcometer floats higher and then just stays there, seemingly due to the surface t...

Don't confuse being given advice you don't want to hear with trolling. Watching a parrot can lead you to making mistakes, especially when you are new at the game and don't have your own records to use for decision making. May folks use parrots and like the additional feedback they give. They certai...

CopperFiend wrote: ↑Wed Nov 25, 2020 3:45 pm Filing a small notch in the inner ring where the alcometer sits can help with meniscus control

I'll give that a shot! Thanks man.

still_stirrin wrote: ↑Wed Nov 25, 2020 4:00 pm Parrots are overrated. I don’t have one, never needed one, and I’ve made hundreds of runs. Copper is pretty to look at, so put it on the shelf.

Sorry, I can't help you. And I don’t even sympathize with your dilemma. Sorry.
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Umm.. fantastic? Why are you trolling in the novice section?

What *may* have happened is that the paper inside with the printed graduations has broken free and slipped. It doesn't usually happen though unless you've given it a good bump. Note that alcometers are usually calibrated at 60F and you'll need to adjust for that higher temperature. That wouldn't acc...

I don't think I've ever seen this issue posted (or my search skills suck; possible). While the alcometer is in the parrot, it reads exceptionally low when the distillate is in the 50-20 ABV range. Sampling into a hydrometer tube and using the same alcometer, it reads normally. It seems that menisucu...

Thank you, sir! I've attached a photo of what the pellicle looks like. It doesn't smell bad; just fruity. The black cord goes down to the aquarium heater. It's a bit chilly in the cellar, so I use the heater to keep things moving along.

Saltbush Bill wrote: ↑Sun Nov 08, 2020 1:37 am Fish it out.....throw the wash in the boiler and run it.....use backset and carry on as normal.

Typically the corn and yeast culture would be reused for the next generation. Now that there's a shift in the microorganisms toward lacto/pedio/brett/etc., can further generations be made?

Should any generation develop a pellicle on top, or has the biology gone too far into souring yeasts at that point to make a good beverage?

ESP8266 is a fantastic platform. You may be able to grab some ideas from "eParrot" discussions that have gone flat.

A suggestion from someone who has also "Been down that road before" Don't trust the thermometer until it accurately reads the vapor temp from a boiler full of water. I can just picture the vapor that condenses and cools on the inside of the pipe, running down and dripping off the thermowe...

I recently did my first stripping run as well, and had some weird results. So if you run the strip until you see 210F (~99C) vapor before the condenser, the phase diagram indicates that the vapor you're collecting is somewhere around 12% ABV. How long do you collect into those tails?

I also get fores at or just above 72% in some strips, so "should not be possible" may well be the case, but factors like internal reflux may well bump up the theoretical maximum you can get in a pot still. I think there might have been a lot of esterification. Ethyl acetate? You should be...

Back to Auber EZBoil for just a moment. I have one of those on my electric brewery controller and absolutely love it. The only drawback with it is that it only shows whole degree increments (eg. 80C, 81C, 82C, etc.). They make an even better unit with 1/10-degree resolution in "distilling mode&...

Was the offtake cool to the touch? Yeah, temp in the collection vial was about 19C. Thats all very weird, none of your data adds up. I should not be possible to get 72% ethanol even on foreshots from a 10% wash in a pot still, you would need closer to 30% in the boiler. At 63 degrees there should b...

Hi folks. It certainly didn't burn the eyes or nose like opening a bottle of cooking vinegar would. The pellicle was white, with sort of "brain fold" type striations and a few bubbles underneath. TBH, it looked like a lacto soured beer pellicle. I'm kicking myself for not taking a photo, b...

I'll start with a bit of back-story. I made a 20L batch of UJSM back in April, O.G.=1.080 --> F.G = 0.998 in just under 3 weeks according to the Tilt. I forgot about it. It's been sitting in the cellar for about 5 months now and had a very good pellicle on it when I opened the fermenter this morning...

squeezins - Those plates look fantastic. Would you be willing to detail the dimensions of the build (hole size, count, etc.) of both the cap and the upcomer? Also, are the caps soldered to the base plate?

Thanks, VLAGAVULVIN. That's very similar to what I had envisioned; nothing new under the sun I suppose.

C'mon, it's not a tough concept. Instead of injecting steam or using a true bain marie, the liquid boiler charge operates as the steam source and avoids all the complications of exterior liquid level control and waste heat (bain marie) or the use of outside steam. Use a large muslin sack if you're w...

I've heard a lot of folks don't like to distill on grain, either direct fire or with immersion elements due to non-ideal heat transfer causing scorching. If one were to fill the boiler with the liquid portion of the wash to fully cover the element and then suspend a mesh brew bag full of wash-absorb...

Can you use 3A zeolite molecular sieves as efficient column packing? I realize that the water adsorption capacity would be fairly quickly depleted, but wouldn't the small beads covered in microscopic texture also offer a huge surface are for HETP, even saturated? I know a lot of folks are using expa...

This is probably a silly question, but is the 1cup of All Bran measured as 1cup before or after the crush? Should the cereal be ground in a food processor before measuring?